The trailer for Join Us first appeared during the Xbox Showcase in June, offering a glimpse of a darkly humorous cooperative cult simulator where robed followers zip around on pigs, unleash machine‑gun fire, and eventually confront colossal, Cthulhu‑like tentacles. One of the most memorable, albeit omitted, moments was the appearance of a snake‑shooting weapon—a quirky feature that originated from a simple suggestion by a developer’s son. According to Joe Dietsch, the game’s CEO and creative director at Wolf Haus Games, the team was able to prototype the “snake gun” in roughly thirty minutes using an in‑house scaling tool, and the oddball weapon remains a permanent part of the experience.
This anecdote captures the chaotic, improvisational spirit that defines Join Us, an open‑world sandbox survival title that lets players recruit followers—or invite friends in co‑op mode—to build a 1970s‑style cult empire. It also illustrates the studio’s technology‑first philosophy, which has enabled a small crew to produce a high‑fidelity, large‑scale game that would traditionally require a much larger staff. Michael Abbott, Wolf Haus’s chief operating officer, summed up their ambition: “We wanted to be disruptors. We told everyone we could build a AAA‑level experience with just twelve people, and most people thought we were crazy.” The team’s confidence stems from a history of achieving big results on modest budgets.
Many of the founders come from indie‑film backgrounds, accustomed to punching well above their weight. After delivering eighty pitches, Wolf Haus finally secured equity investment from Krafton and Lifelike Capital, giving the studio the financial runway needed to bring Join Us to life.
Wolf Haus’s leadership is steeped in Hollywood pedigree. Dietsch studied film at Chapman University, where he met Louie Gibson—son of actor Mel Gibson—and the two later co‑wrote and co‑directed the indie features Happy Hunting and Manifest West.
Abbott, meanwhile, is the son of renowned makeup artist Larry Abbott and helped launch Ascendant Pictures, the production company founded by Chris Roberts before his transition to Star Citizen. Abbott later produced films such as Fight for ’84 starring Jamie Foxx.
This blend of cinematic experience and entrepreneurial grit informs the studio’s approach to game development. The seed of Join Us was planted when Dietsch began experimenting with Unreal Engine, attracted by its free download model and the perception that the barrier to entry for creating games had finally lowered.
He taught himself the engine through YouTube tutorials, built a few modest prototypes, and eventually gravitated toward a concept that combined his love of grindhouse cinema, survival mechanics, and cult narratives. The result was a proof‑of‑concept that he shared with Abbott, who then presented it to Dooma, a partner studio that helped refine the vision.
Dooma Wendschuh, Wolf Haus’s chief financial officer and narrative director, brings a unique blend of film and tech experience. After a career producing and writing for movies, he pivoted to games in the early 2000s, founding Sekretagent Productions, which supplied narrative work for titles such as Prince of Persia: The Two Thrones, Assassin’s Creed, and Batman: Arkham Origins. Later, he launched several tech ventures, most notably the cannabis formulation company Ebbu, which sold for roughly C$430 million (US$330 million). Following that sale, he bought a remote island restaurant in Canada and planned a quiet retirement—until an unexpected call from his former Hollywood‑hill roommate, Michael Abbott, pulled him back into game development.
Wendschuh’s enthusiasm for Join Us led him to recruit former Warner Bros. Games VP Reid Schneider as a strategic advisor, and Schneider in turn brought on Pierre‑Olivier Chartrand, a veteran programmer from Ubisoft Montreal, to serve as chief technology officer. With this core team in place, the studio turned its focus to funding. Pitching began in the summer of 2023, a period marked by a broader industry downturn that made investors cautious.
Nonetheless, the team’s compelling vision and Hollywood‑sized credentials eventually attracted the attention of CAA (Creative Artists Agency), which facilitated introductions to Krafton and Lifelike Capital. Those partnerships provided the seed round that financed the game’s development. One of the most striking aspects of Join Us is the studio’s commitment to a lean, collaborative culture.
With only thirteen full‑time staff members, Wolf Haus intentionally kept the team small to ensure that every voice could influence the creative direction. Dietsch explains that this philosophy required building robust, scalable tools from day one. “If a system exists in the game, it must be debuggable and extensible by a single person,” he says.
The first year of development was therefore split between designing gameplay concepts and engineering the toolset that would allow those concepts to scale across a six‑kilometre‑square open world without collapsing under its own weight. The funding model further reinforced this tool‑centric approach. Because Krafton and Lifelike took equity stakes rather than demanding milestone‑based payouts, Wolf Haus could invest heavily in internal tooling without the pressure of immediate ROI. The studio uses the investors’ capital to self‑fund the entire development process, only seeking additional project finance for marketing once the core product is complete.
This arrangement aligns the investors’ interests with the studio’s long‑term value creation and grants the team the freedom to solve problems by building custom tools, even if that slows short‑term progress. In an industry increasingly enamored with generative AI, Wolf Haus deliberately avoids using such technology for creative tasks. Dietsch emphasizes that the human touch is essential to their vision: “We love making games, and handing the creative process over to an AI would defeat the purpose of why we get up every morning.” While the team does employ generative AI for mundane administrative functions like calendar management and email drafting, it plays no role in art, design, or narrative creation. Interestingly, Krafton—despite branding itself as an “AI‑first” company—specifically required Wolf Haus to refrain from AI‑driven content generation as a condition of its investment, mirroring similar stances taken by other Krafton‑owned studios.
The studio’s commitment to handcrafted content extends to the game’s world and audio. The entire six‑kilometre‑square map is hand‑crafted, and the 15,000 voice lines are performed by human actors, not synthetic voices. Dietsch believes this level of human involvement is crucial, even for an indie‑scale project, because it preserves the authenticity and emotional resonance that players expect from a narrative‑driven experience.
Transitioning from film to games has offered Dietsch a newfound immediacy. In cinema, an idea can take years to materialize—script, greenlight, shoot, edit—while in game development, an inspiration can be prototyped within hours, directly inside the engine. This rapid feedback loop energizes the team and aligns with their desire to iterate quickly.
Wendschuh notes that traditional filmmaking is heavily front‑loaded, requiring the attachment of high‑profile talent and studio approval before production can even begin. By contrast, the video‑game market has fewer gatekeepers; a small, talented team can release a successful title without celebrity endorsements or massive studio backing. This democratization is one of the reasons Wolf Haus believes a twelve‑person studio can compete with larger developers.
Both founders trace their creative passion back to childhood. Dietsch recalls wanting to make either games or movies at the age of six, a decision that ultimately hinged on a Christmas gift—a camera.
He also learned programming on a TI‑83 calculator, merging his love of storytelling with technical skill. He concludes that whether the medium is film or interactive entertainment, the core goal remains the same: to craft an experience, tell a story, and engage an audience.
Join Us stands as a testament to what a tightly knit, technically adept team can achieve when they blend Hollywood storytelling sensibilities with game‑development expertise—without relying on generative AI. The result is a quirky, expansive cult‑sim that promises players a uniquely handcrafted adventure, built by a dozen passionate creators who dared to defy industry expectations.